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LAS VEGAS - Chris Andrews is one of the bookmaking legends in Nevada’s brief sports book history, considered by those in the know as being as sharp as they come. It’s no surprise that he comes from a long lineage of Pittsburgh bookmakers who have made names for themselves in the state, such as The Linemakers’ own Jimmy Vaccaro, Bert Osborne, Jack Franzi and Andrews’ cousin Art Manteris.

After 30 years of making numbers for his sports books to beat the public – mostly up north in Reno, where he still resides – Andrews is now sharing his views with the public on a new website, AgainstTheNumber.com, which debuted last week. The most interesting release in the site's first week was Andrews’ personal college football season win totals for every major conference.

The LVH SuperBook will be posting its numbers in mid-July, and the South Point said its win totals will go up around the same time. Andrews offers up a great tool to help shape betting strategy in advance of the numbers becoming available at the books.

We talked with Andrews at the South Point, where he gave us a peak into his methodology and pointed out some teams he’ll look to bet on or against during the upcoming college football season.

Methodology

Andrews made preliminary lines on every FBS game on the 2014 schedule and used those numbers as the basis for his win totals.

“Let’s say a team is a 6-point favorite – that gives them about a 70 percent chance of winning that game, so I five them seven-tenths of a win,” Andrews explains. “Conversely, a 6-point dog gets three-tenths of a win. You’ve got to use a little common sense after that.”

Bet on, bet against

Sparty fans aren’t going to like this, but Andrews isn’t all that high on Michigan State this year. Mark Dantonio’s squad went 13-1 last season, including wins over Ohio State in the Big Ten title game and Stanford in the Rose Bowl.

Andrews sets MSU’s 2014 win total at 8.5.

“I think Michigan State might be a little bit of a bet-against team this year,” he says. “Not that they lost so much, but if you go back and look at last season, they caught a couple of lucky breaks early (and) they won some of those games. Their offense didn’t outscore their defense and special teams until game three. Well, that doesn’t ordinarily happen. … By the end of the year, I thought they were one of the best teams in the country. I don’t see them doing that again this year. …

“A lot of Michigan State fans think this is national championship time.”

Oklahoma State is another bet-against team this season, Andrews believes.

“They’ve lost an awful lot. They’ve slowly built a pretty good program, but these things don’t go straight in one direction, and I think you’re going to have a little bit of a blip.”

With three players taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, Texas A&M may be in for a down year, many college football observers are thinking. Andrews, though, has a different assessment and puts the Aggies’ win total at 8.5.

“When I went through and did my work, they graded out a lot better than I had anticipated; I thought they’d be down more,” he said. “Their schedule is not so bad. They have some very winnable games that I think they will win. I have a lot of respect for (Kevin) Sumlin. I think he’s one of the top coaches in the NCAA. … You can’t replace (Johnny Manziel, Mike Evans or Jake Matthews) – there is production missing. But I think they’ve built a pretty good base. I think they’re still going to be pretty good."

Here’s a sampling of the season win totals posted by Andrews on Against the Number: